Quote Originally Posted by xVeinx View Post
My GTX 260 55nm idles at around 50C. Even with a new node, 3 billion transistors are going to produce heat. There are plenty of factors that play into how that heat is dissipated, resulting in the perceived temperature at any one point; even if true, it's not the end of the world. Assuming these figures will be true of released units, then the only real impact this will have is on overclockability (and perhaps lifespan, if the proper precautions haven't been taken).
It'd just mean that Nvidia is lazy. It could've been okay 2 years ago, but downclocking in idle right now is a must IMO.
Sure, 3B transistors is a lot. But do you need 3B transistors running at (let's say) 650MHz to draw windows icons? 200-300MHz core clock (2-3x lower power consumption) and lower voltage (can easily get rid of 20%+ more power), and perhaps actually shutting off some parts of the chip (like Intel does with i7 chips) could get the job done marvellously.
It's not the end of the world, but idling at 70C would be a terribly lazy design, and I simply don't believe in that, especially for a super expensive high end card that took ages to develop.